The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition has been helping PhD students hone their communication skills since 2008. For this competition, participants are challenged to effectively explain their research in just three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience.

This year’s Asia-Pacific 3MT competition had representatives from 54 universities including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. From two semi-finals the judging panels selected 8 finalists with the People’s Choice winner of the Semi-Final competition also progressing to the Final as the Wildcard entrant.

The Asia-Pacific 3MT Final was again hosted virtually with videos uploaded to vimeo for judging. On Wednesday 20 October, nine finalists came together for a live event to discuss the significance of their research and hear the announcement of the 2021 winners.

The ACGR congratulates all candidates who participated this year and showcased the research conducted in Australia by graduate researchers.

This year’s participants, like every year, included many inspiring research graduates conducting diverse research projects. This year’s finalists included; investigating the possibility of smartphone-based University degrees, the importance and benefits of family diversity in Australian picture books, understanding different perspectives of female circumcision, and understanding how intermittent fasting might counter epigenetic changes seen in vascular dementia.

The winners of the 2021 Asia-Pacific 3MT, sponsored by Springer Nature, are:

2021 Asia-Pacific 3MT Final Winner:

Matthew Shaw with “Lunacy”
School of Engineering, Space Technology and Industry Institute, Swinburne University of Technology

2021 Asia-Pacific 3MT Final Runner-Up:

Tharika Liyanage with “My soul burning question”
Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University

2021 Asia-Pacific 3MT Final People’s Choice:

Usman Bin Shahid with “Electrochemical Ammonia Synthesis: Towards a brighter and cleaner future”
School of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Find out more about the 3MT competition here.